McKinney City Council approves budget, lowers property tax rate

City Council approves a three-cent property tax reduction

McKinney City Council voted to approve the Fiscal Year 2018 budget of $406.7 million and also lowered the city’s property tax rate. The three-cent reduction brought the current rate of 0.573000 down to 0.540199. This means property owners will pay $0.541099 for every $100 of assessed property value.

The general fund revenues and expenditures are proposed at $137,244,473 for the fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2018. The fund balance remains strong, with a projected $50,802,232 FY 2018 ending balance, or 37 percent of appropriations, which exceeds the 25 percent requirement.

The total budget also addresses staffing needs with more than 41 additional city staff members approved to be added to the General Fund next fiscal year, which includes 13 additional staff in the Police Department, nine in Parks & Recreation, and eight in Development Services.

“We are committed to investing in the community for long-term growth and maintaining quality services by making fiscally prudent, practical decisions and limiting financial burdens on citizens,” said Mayor George Fuller. “By working together and focusing on conservative and responsible budgeting, we’ve been able to ensure that the city is planning in a way that’s sustaining, not only for next fiscal year, but for years to come. Though I am pleased with the tax rate cut we put forth, our continued commitment is to long-term, sustainable tax relief that will only be realized by increasing our commercial business tax base and sales tax revenues.”

Residents and stakeholders were invited to provide feedback in April prior to staff preparing the proposed budget and again at two meetings in September after the budget was drafted. Residents also had the opportunity to provide feedback with the Virtual Town Hall budget exercise where residents ranked McKinney's budget priorities by dividing dots among different budget funds.

“All of the feedback gathered through the Virtual Town Hall exercise and public input meetings was considered during the budget discussions,” said City Manager Paul Grimes. “We value the input of our residents and will continue to seek creative ways for residents to provide input and participate in the process.”